but made the change more terrible. Now, by an earthquake, the evil
is shaken down. And her own historians, in a better day, shall
write, that from the day the sword cut off the cancer, she began to
find her health. What, then, shall hinder the rebuilding of the
Republic? The evil spirit is cast out: why should not this nation
cease to wander among tombs, cutting itself? Why should it not
come, clothed and in its right mind, to "sit at the feet of Jesus"?
Is it feared that the government will oppress the conquered States?
What possible motive has the government to narrow the base of that
pyramid on which its own permanence depends? Is it feared that the
rights of the States will be withheld? The South is not more
jealous of State rights than the North. State rights from the
earliest colonial days have been the peculiar pride and jealousy of
New England. In every stage of national formation, it was
peculiarly Northern, and not Southern, statesmen that guarded State
rights as we were forming the Constitution. But once united, the
loyal States gave up forever that which had been delegated to the
national government. And now, in the hour of victory, the loyal
States do not mean to trench upon Southern State rights. They will
not do it, nor suffer it to be done. There is not to be one rule
for high latitudes and another for low. We take nothing from the
Southern States that has not already been taken from the Northern.
The South shall have just those rights that every eastern, every
middle, every western State has--no more, no less. We are not
seeking our own aggrandizement by impoverishing the South. Its
prosperity is an indispensable element of our own.

We have shown, by all that we have suffered in war, how great is our
estimate of the Southern States of this Union; and we will measure
that estimate, now, in peace, by still greater exertions for their
rebuilding. Will reflecting men not perceive, then, the wisdom of
accepting established facts, and, with alacrity of enterprise, begin
to retrieve the past? Slavery cannot come back. It is the interest,
therefore, of every man to hasten its end. Do you want more war? Are
you not yet weary of contest? Will you gather up the unexploded
fragments of this prodigious magazine of all mischief, and heap them
up for continued explosions? Does not the South need peace? And,
since free labor is inevitable, will you have it in its worst forms
or in its best? S